Rirou woke up that Tuesday morning March 30th and he knew it that his world was about to Rock, and for those about to Rock, we salute you. Rirou needed to salute his inner child in order to be a good Dad. You can call him a dick, an a$$hole or even an worthless punk, but he wanted to make it different. Rirou did not want to pass his emotional issues, he wanted to break the cycle. In order to understand that we must go back in time…
It was Festivus day somewhere back in time and Rirou was debating his existence, he went to a friend’s house that just had a baby. After holding and playing the baby for hours Rirou knew it he was ready to be a Dad. However, first Rirou needed to go through his biggest crisis of his life. That was Rirou’s worst crisis but with therapy and time Rirou came back stronger and on Halloween day Luke was conceived.
Rirou decided he was going to do one last ironman. He signed up for Ironman Cozumel, however his mind and soul were in a different place. Rirou was tired of the ironman life. He started the race, and never finished. His lost his water bottle, and rode 25 miles (40km) with no water. He got dehydrated due to the 90 F degree (35 Celsius) weather in Cozumel. Rirou has pushed the limits many times, but this time he did not feel like it. He saw his wife, Luke in the belly and 90% of the race cheating, he said “fuck it! I am done.” Rirou stopped and took the rest of the time in Cozumel as a vacation.
Rirou did not like to quit, he came back home and didn’t train for 4 weeks but he decided to do a local Ironman in Naples Florida in January. He didn’t train much because he just wanted to finish and take the sour feeling from his mouth. Rirou liked local races cause there is less cheating; a local race have at max 400 athletes, and an Ironman race have 2000+ and in theory less drugs. However, on a smaller races he could recognize the athletes that cheated and he talk shit in their face. Rirou is a punk in so many ways, and he did not tolerated that, and he said that loud and clear whenever he felt like it.
Anyways, Rirou did the entire race with Luke’s ultrasound picture with him, he knew that was his last ironman and he was dedicating that race to Luke. Rirou won the race, waited to his athletes to finish and congratulated them. After racing for 10 hours he drove 2 hours because he wanted to go home and stay with his family. He even skipped the podium.
A few weeks after that Rirou found out they were having a boy, and he started to build his room. Rirou gave the name idea because he is a big fan of star wars (yeah, it’s not Luke from the bible, it’s from star wars) but Rirou only told his wife about Luke Skywalker character after she already was hooked on the name.
Rirou wanted to be a super present Dad and he knew he needed to talk to Luke as much as he could to build that connection. Dad’s need to build a connection. The mom caries the baby, so they are already connected. Rirou created an email for Luke, and the first e-mail he wrote was about what they were doing in preparation for his arrival. Rirou attached on that e-mail the soundtrack that he used to build Luke’s crib, and how that music touches his heart and how happy music made him feel….
To be continued…
Feel Good,
Rirou
I am Rirou the Punk! 
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